How much of the Himalayas must melt before we rediscover our humanity? I have carried this question for some time. Perhaps it came from the mountains, the rain and the silence. The Himalayas feed rivers, sustain communities and carry memories of centuries. Yet their changing landscape reminds us that nature has limits. We discuss melting glaciers, disappearing water sources and climate change, but too often these remain statistics. What happens when they become part of daily

Nepal’s $5 billion reconstruction bill exposes a wider economic failure: when governments repeatedly restore vulnerable assets instead of investing in resilience, natural hazards become recurring fiscal shocks. Nepal needs $4 billion to $5 billion to rebuild after floods triggered by a glacier collapse killed more than 600 people in Nepal and Tibet on August 26. That bill equals nearly a tenth of the country’s economy. The bigger question is what this bill represents. $5 bill

Mumbai: Over 72 hours after the great Himalayan deluge along the Nepal-Tibet borders, the fate and whereabouts of Mumbai’s mountaineer and medico, Dr. Milind P. Chitaley, his wife Megha and their 61-plus team of pilgrims bound for Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, in Tibet, remain unclear. Leading mountaineers from Mumbai, Pune and other places, along with Maharashtra and Indian government are working almost 24X7 to get information on the ‘missing’ group that went through Hills & Tra

Thakkar Bapa Vidyalaya Samithi students during a candle prayer vigil in Chennai on Friday for the victims and survivors of the flash floods in Nepal. Pic: PTI Mumbai: Thousands of Tibetans and Nepalis settled in Mumbai and parts of Maharashtra are worried stiff about their relatives, friends and other citizens in their native countries hit by the devastating avalanche and floods in the Himalayan region. An estimated 1000 Tibetans and more than four-lakhs Nepalis live in Maha